Tony Saletan


Anthony D. "Tony" Saletan is an American folk singer and educator, who is responsible for the modern rediscovery of two of the genre's best-known songs, "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and "Kumbaya". Born and raised in New York City, he attended the Walden School and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Harvard University. For a brief period during his childhood, Saletan's piano teacher was a young Leonard Bernstein. He was involved as a teen in the Henry Wallace presidential campaign of 1948, in which original music in the folk style was important. Saletan settled in the Boston area, where for several years he appeared on educational television, taught music in the Newton, Massachusetts public schools, and gave private guitar lessons. He also became involved in folk dancing and calling of contra dances. Saletan has often taught at Pinewoods Dance Camp in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Later in life, Saletan moved to Tacoma, Washington.

Shaker Village Work Camp and the Folk Revival

Saletan spent the summer of 1953 at Buck’s Rock Work Camp leading the campers in regular folk song sessions.
In 1954, Tony Saletan was preparing to work as folksong leader at the Shaker Village Work Camp. He searched the Widener Library of Harvard University for material to teach the villagers that summer. Out of that research, he adapted the song "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" from the 1867 songbook Slave Songs of the United States to create the version that is well-known today. "I judged that the tune was very singable, added some harmony and thought the one-word chorus would be an easy hit with the teens. But a typical original verse consisted of one line repeated once, and I thought a rhyme would be more interesting to the teenagers at Shaker Village Work Camp, where I introduced it. So I adapted traditional African-American couplets in place of the original verses."
During the summer of 1954, Saletan taught "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" to Pete Seeger, who later sang it with the Weavers, one of the most important singing groups leading the American folk music revival of the 1950s to mid-1960s. Saletan's adaptation was included in the Village's 1956 songbook, Songs of Work. A single based on Saletan's version was released in 1960 by the American folk quintet the Highwaymen under the abbreviated title, "Michael", and reached number one on the U.S. and British hit parades in September 1961.
Joe Hickerson, co-founder of the Folksmiths, credits Saletan for introducing him to the song "Kumbaya" in 1957. The first LP recording of "Kumbaya" was released in 1958 by the Folksmiths. Folksinger Peggy Seeger was also taught several songs by Saletan, which she later recorded.

Television and recording career

Saletan was the first person to appear on WGBH, Channel 2, when Boston's public educational television station made its on-air debut on May 2, 1955. He sang the theme song for Come and See, a program aimed at preschoolers. Following a 1959-1960 world tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department, Saletan released the album I'm a Stranger Here on Prestige Records. On his return from abroad, he created Sing, Children, Sing for national distribution on educational television, based on an earlier WGBH project, Music Grade II. In the 1960s, Saletan also hosted several episodes of What's New, broadcast "field trips" to historic locations with associated songs.
During their marriage, Saletan and Irene Kossoy performed together as Tony and Irene Saletan. In 1970, they released an album on Folk-Legacy Records, Tony and Irene Saletan: Folk Songs & Ballads. They also made a 7" vinyl recording of four songs for the Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company, titled The Ballad of Boston and Other New England Folk Tunes. Tony and Irene performed together at the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in 1971, as well as with Irene's sister, Ellen, and Ellen's then husband, Robin Christenson.
On December 16, 1969, Saletan made a guest appearance during the first season of Sesame Street, the iconic children's television program. In the first of four segments on which he appeared, Saletan led the show's children and adult regulars in an adaptation of the traditional workers' alphabet song, "So Merry, So Merry Are We", as well as a traditional counting song, "Ten Little Angels". In the second, he sings and takes ideas from the children to invent new verses for "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground", and then plays "Cripple Creek" on banjo as Gordon demonstrates the limberjack. In the third segment, he sings Woody Guthrie's "Pick it Up" and then "Mi Chacra", teaching animal names in Spanish. Saletan concludes the show with Guthrie's "".
In the early 1970s, he hosted three public television series for children, produced by Western Instructional Television : The Song Bag, Let's All Sing with Tony Saletan, and Singing Down the Road. Two record albums were issued from these shows mostly drawn from American folksongs, including those discovered and developed for teaching young Shaker Villagers. The first album to emerge from the WIT shows, Song Bag with Tony Saletan, likewise had an associated teacher's guide and songbook. Saletan also recorded Songs and Sounds of the Sea, Revolutionary Tea, and George & Ruth.

Discography